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The earliest known keyboard instrument was the Ancient Greek hydraulis, a type of pipe organ invented in the third century BC. [2] The keys were likely balanced and could be played with a light touch, as is clear from the reference in a Latin poem by Claudian (late 4th century), who says magna levi detrudens murmura tactu . . . intonet, that is "let him thunder forth as he presses out mighty ...
The piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, through engagement of an action whose hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal temperament. A musician who specializes in piano is called a pianist.
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the interval of an octave. Pressing a key on the keyboard makes the ...
Additional keyboard instruments, the clavichord (tangent-struck strings) and harpsichord (quill-plucked strings), were developed in the 14th century CE. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] As technology improved, more sophisticated keyboards were developed, including the 12-tone keyboard still in use today.
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument played using a keyboard, a row of levers which are pressed by the fingers.The most common of these are the piano, organ, and various electronic keyboards, including synthesizers and digital pianos.
Description. A virginals is a smaller and simpler, rectangular or polygonal, form of harpsichord. It has only one string per note, running more or less parallel to the keyboard, on the long side of the case. Many, if not most, of the instruments were constructed without legs, and would be placed on a table for playing.
A square grand piano. The square piano is a type of piano that has horizontal strings arranged diagonally across the rectangular case above the hammers and with the keyboard set in the long side, with the sounding board above a cavity in the short side. It is variously attributed to Silbermann and Frederici and was improved by Petzold and Babcock.
Piano history and musical performance. The modern form of the piano, which emerged in the late 19th century, is a very different instrument from the pianos for which earlier classical piano literature was originally composed. The modern piano has a heavy metal frame, thick strings made of top-grade steel, and a sturdy action with a substantial ...